ABBYY was founded in 1989 by David Yang. As of 2011, the company has over 1000 employees in fourteen offices in Germany (Munich), the UK (Bracknell), the USA (Milpitas, CA), Japan (Tokyo), Taiwan (Taipei), Russia (Moscow), Ukraine (Kiev), Canada (Ontario), Australia (Sydney), and Cyprus. The key area of ABBYY's development and research is text recognition technologies and applied linguistics. The majority of ABBYY products, such as document conversion and document capture solutions and technologies, are designed to simplify the transition from paper documents to electronic information, eliminating the most time-consuming and labour-intensive tasks such as retyping text and manual data entry. ABBYY also develops language products, which include ABBYY Lingvo dictionary software and solutions for professional translators such as ABBYY Aligner. In 2007, a branch specializing in publishing dictionaries, reference books, encyclopedias and guide-books, ABBYY Press, was established. ABBYY also owns ABBYY Language Services, a high-tech translation and localization agency. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: ABBYY)

The American Library Association (ALA) is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: American Library Association)

Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Apple software includes the Mac OS X operating system; the iTunes media browser; the iLife suite of multimedia and creativity software; the iWork suite of productivity software; Aperture, a professional photography package; Final Cut Studio, a suite of professional audio and film-industry software products; Logic Studio, a suite of music production tools; the Safari internet browser; and iOS, a mobile operating system. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: Apple)

The British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC) is the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) Designated Data Centre for the Atmospheric Sciences. The role of the BADC is to assist UK atmospheric researchers to locate, access and interpret atmospheric data and to ensure the long-term integrity of atmospheric data produced by NERC projects. (Excerpt from this source)

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the principal public service broadcaster in the United Kingdom, with its headquarters at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff. Its main responsibility is to provide public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, Channel Islands and Isle of Man. The BBC is an autonomous public service broadcaster that operates under a Royal Charter. Within the United Kingdom its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee, which is charged to all United Kingdom households, companies and organisations using any type of equipment to record and/or receive live television broadcasts; the level of the fee is set annually by the British Government and agreed by Parliament. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: BBC)

The British Library is the library of the United Kingdom, and one of the world's largest libraries in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats, both print and digital: books, manuscripts, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, videos, play-scripts, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints, drawings. The Library's collections include around 14 million books (second only to the USA's Library of Congress), along with substantial holdings of manuscripts and historical items dating back as far as 2000 BC. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: British Library)

Carnegie Mellon University (also known as Carnegie Mellon or simply CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university began as the Carnegie Technical Schools, founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1900. In 1912, the school became Carnegie Institute of Technology and began granting four-year degrees. In 1967, the Carnegie Institute of Technology merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research to form Carnegie Mellon University. The University’s 140-acre (0.57 km2) main campus is 3 miles (4.8 km) from Downtown Pittsburgh and abuts the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. Carnegie Mellon has seven colleges and independent schools: the Carnegie Institute of Technology (engineering), College of Fine Arts, Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Mellon College of Science, Tepper School of Business, School of Computer Science, and H. John Heinz III College. Carnegie Mellon students come from all 50 U.S. states and 93 countries. It consistently ranks among the top 25 universities in the United States and was named one of the "New Ivies" by Newsweek in 2006. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: Carnegie Mellon University)

The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) was established to help solve the extensive challenges of digital preservation and digital curation and to lead research, development, advice, and support services for higher education institutions in the United Kingdom. The original call to establish the DCC described its function as: '...to provide a national focus for research into curation issues and expertise in the processes of digital archiving, preservation and management. Particular emphasis will be placed on the needs of users of the Centre's outputs'. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: DCC)

The Digital Repository Federation (DRF) is a federation for the universities and research institutions that have set up institutional repositories (IRs) in Japan. It was established by Hokkaido University, Chiba University and Kanazawa University in 2006 as part of the Cyber Science Infrastructure Program (CSI) of the National Institute of Informatics (NII). It became an independent organization based on self-sustaining operation in 2010, and is currently made up of 144 universities and research institutions (as of June 5, 2012). It is a loose-knit coalition that does not have a strict membership system. (Excerpt from this source)

Elsevier is a publishing company which publishes medical and scientific literature. It is a part of the Reed Elsevier group. Based in Amsterdam, the company has operations in the United Kingdom, USA and elsewhere. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: Elsevier)

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program. The company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, often dubbed the "Google Guys", while the two were attending Stanford University as PhD candidates. It was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998, and its initial public offering followed on August 19, 2004. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: Google)

Griffith University is a public, coeducational, research university located in the southeastern region of the Australian state of Queensland. The university has five satellite campuses located in the Gold Coast, Logan City and in the Brisbane suburbs of Mount Gravatt, Nathan and South Bank. Current total enrollment is approximately 43,000 with 4,000 full-time equivalent staff. Griffith University offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees across ten discipline areas including Arts, Education, Business, Health, Law, Engineering, Information Technology, Environment, Music and Visual Arts. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: Griffith University)

Hiroshima University, in the Japanese cities of Higashihiroshima and Hiroshima, was established 1949 by the merger of a number of national educational institutions. Under the National School Establishment Law, Hiroshima University was established on May 31, 1949. After World War II, the school system in Japan was entirely reformed and each of the institutions of higher education under the pre-war system was reorganized. As a general rule, one national university was established in each prefecture, and Hiroshima University became a national university under the new system by combining the pre-war higher educational institutions in Hiroshima Prefecture. The new university combined eight component institutions: Hiroshima University of Literature and Science, Hiroshima School of Secondary Education, Hiroshima School of Education, Hiroshima Women's School of Secondary Education, Hiroshima School of Education for Youth, Hiroshima Higher School, Hiroshima Higher Technical School, and Hiroshima Municipal Higher Technical School. In 1953, the Hiroshima Prefectural Medical College was added to the new Hiroshima University. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: Hiroshima University)

International Business Machines (IBM) (NYSE: IBM) is an American multinational technology and consulting firm headquartered in Armonk, New York. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. The company was founded in 1911 as the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation through a merger of four companies: the Tabulating Machine Company, the International Time Recording Company, the Computing Scale Corporation, and the Bundy Manufacturing Company. CTR adopted the name International Business Machines in 1924, using a name previously designated to CTR's subsidiary in Canada and later South America. Its distinctive culture and product branding has given it the nickname Big Blue. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: IBM)

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE, read I-Triple-E) is a non-profit professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation related to electricity. It has more than 400,000 members in more than 160 countries, 45% outside the United States. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: IEEE)

Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) campus. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: Indiana University)

Information Today, Inc. (ITI) is the publisher of several Internet and Technology magazines, newsletters and books all geared toward the library, information & knowledge management community. They also coordinate several conferences for technology and library science professionals. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: Information Today)

Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) support United Kingdom post-16 and higher education and research by providing leadership in the use of ICT (Information and Communications Technology) in support of learning, teaching, research and administration. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: JISC)

Kagawa University is a national university in Takamatsu, Kagawa, Japan. The university was established in 1949 as a national university after the consolidation and reorganization of the Kagawa Normal School, the Kagawa Normal School for Youth and the Takamatsu College of Economics (formerly the Takamatsu Higher School of Commerce). This university includes: Faculty of Agriculture, Faculty of Economics, Faculty of Education, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Medicine. (Excerpt from Wikipedia article: Kagawa_University)